Companies are increasingly jumping onto the content marketing bandwagon and 2013 is expected to the big year for marketing through content. Content marketing is slowly replacing traditional marketing and many small companies and startups have started relying solely on social media and content. Large companies too are increasingly investing in digital strategy with content being the focus to deliver the impact. Here are some trends, which are expected to rule the content marketing world this year.
Chief Content Officer will gain more importance
To manage content creation and marketing activities many companies are hiring content marketing experts for the post of the chief marketing expert. Organizations want to publish content regularly and as a result are hiring content marketing experts to be able to create a large volume of content in-house. Experts predict that more companies will be hiring such content officers this year to help boost in-house content marketing efforts. The Chief Content Officer at any company is expected to work closely with the Public Relations and Marketing departments to create consistent marketing campaigns.
More journalists will be hired to create content
Companies have realized that they need to be able to tell stories with their content and that their content needs to be simplified so that people can understand it quickly. This is why there is a growing trend among non-media companies of hiring qualified journalists for their content marketing teams. Journalists have the skill and expertise to research stories independently and a good command over the language allowing them to create high-quality and original content easily.
More video content will be published
With shortening attention spans of customers, companies need to be able to get their message across quickly and videos are the best way to do so. Companies will reduce the amount of textual content that they are publishing and focus more time and effort on creating engaging videos. Videos also work really well on mobile platforms and as more and more people are adopting mobile devices, companies are making a push towards creating more high-definition video content.
Purchase of media companies
Content marketing has become a major activity for many companies. Also, most companies want to create high-quality and valuable visual and textual content in-house. This is why many major companies have already bought media companies to take care of their content marketing campaigns. Google has already acquired quite a few media companies and has even purchased large media companies like Zagat. Other big brands will be purchasing media companies this year to improve their content marketing initiatives.
Content repurposing
As there are so many types of content that can be published, companies will be repurposing content to be able to publish content frequently and to keep the freshness factor of their blogs and websites high. Old textual content can be converted into ebooks or videos and content repurposing is a great way to create a sustainable content marketing strategy.
The rise of podcasts
Podcasts have always been popular but have been rarely used in content marketing campaigns. 2013 is the year that companies will start creating more podcasts as podcasts are highly compatible with mobile devices. Podcasts are also a great way to repurpose content and many influential experts and leaders have already started creating podcasts.
Non-profit organizations will adopt content marketing
So far, retail and tech sector companies have adopted content marketing enthusiastically and many of them have seen great success. However, non-profit organizations have yet to adopt this form of marketing even though they have so much to gain from it. Non-profit organizations do not have the budgets for glamorous traditional campaigns. Creating and publishing content on the web is the most cost-effective way of getting funds and spreading the organization’s message. 2013 will be the year that more non-profit organizations turn towards content marketing.
